Why Choosing an Independent CLM Consultant?

7 Reasons to Choose an Independent CLM Consultant

The best CLM solutions are highly innovative and sophisticated. Their implementation is subject to a high failure rate (50% for first-time CLM implementations, and even higher for some providers). It requires both legal and technical expertise, excellent project and change management, cross-department collaboration, effective stakeholder communication and training, and careful success management.

An independent and expert consultant is the best choice when approaching such a large project, before a decision about CLM adoption is even made, for several reasons:

1. Evaluation. They help you to assess the current situation and formulate the desidered result. Depending on the size of your organization, the complexity of its structure, and the number of contracts signed every year, they may recommend:

   a) the optimization of contract processes and workflows with readily available tools (e.g.: MS Office, Google Workplace, ERP/CRM built-in functionalities), or

   b) the adoption of a basic/intermediate/advanced CLM tool;

2. Impartial selection. Thanks to their familiarity with virtually all CLM products available on the market and their pricing structure, they can support you in the selection of the best solution according to your organization’s needs and budget. On the contrary, engaging with individual CLM vendors comes with the risk of ignoring better options or spending months in building a knowledge of their diverse offerings. If you wish to compare them yourself, there is some basic information available online.

3. Best deal. Thanks to their relationship with the CLM vendors and knowledge of their discount policy, they can help you negotiate the best possible deal.

4. Tool-specific design. Once a decision is made, they can design the processes, workflows, templates, and playbook (i.e. the body of contract policies specific to your organization) to be implemented within the selected tool(s).

5. Configuration and Implementation. They can support you with the software configuration, staff training, launch, and success management, to make sure that the solution is correctly implemented, fully adopted by the organization, and delivering the value promised.

6. Expertise. A competent and certified CLM consultant is an expert in the legal, process, and technical aspects of contract lifecycle management and knows how to bridge the gaps between them. CLM vendors are normally versed in the technical and development side of it, and delegate the rest to a partner consultant.

7. Value. An independent consultant is hired to pursue the best interest of your organization. Their main sources of business are referral and repeating clients (e.g. expanding CLM to other departments or business units), so they must deliver what they promise. With advanced CLM software licenses costing from around 100,000 USD to several millions per organization, an expert consultant’s fee is easily neutralized by the substantial increase in project efficiency and the guarantee of a higher success rate.

If you wish to get the most out of your contracts, do not hesitate to contact us or find out more about what we can do for you.